@underlap@fosstodon.org
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

underlap

@underlap@fosstodon.org

Husband, father, grandfather, follower of Jesus, but very much a work in progress.

Retired software developer, visiting lecturer, IETF editor. Likes repairability. BTW I use arch.

Hobbies: reading, blogging, running, sailing.

Delighted to live in Winchester, UK. Involved in a local church.

Banner: Derwent Water
Profile picture: Dorset coast

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@cory Thanks for publishing your robots.txt. Have you considered putting it in a git repo so it's easy for others to contribute changes, commit logs are captured, etc.?

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

@cory Do you have any pointers to evidence that some AI web crawlers are ignoring robots.txt? I think you mentioned such an example somewhere, but I forget.

underlap, to haskell
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Non-deterministic behaviour in a specification can be a headache for testing. This updated post explores the non-determinism in the JSONPath RFC 9535, describes how the Compliance Test Suite is being upgraded to deal with non-determinism, and shows how non-deterministic tests can be generated automatically. There's also an "explosive" challenge for Haskell programmers.

https://underlap.org/testing-non-determinism

underlap, to fediverse
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Account portability and the social web https://underlap.org/account-portability-in-the-social-web

I believe this is an important topic for the Fediverse. Please boost for visibility.

Thanks to @dottorblaster @jamesravey @hcj @mima @hirad @devnull for commenting on my earlier survey on this topic (https://fosstodon.org/@underlap/111617691764389915)

underlap, to haskell
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

There are plenty of descriptions of Haskell's do notation as syntactic sugar for stringing together sequences of operators such as >>=.

There are also "laws" that define the semantics of the do notation.

But I haven't found any decent description of how to use do notation as if it was a first class language construct. That would be especially useful for beginners.

Anyone know of such a description?

Boosts appreciated!

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

A couple of days ago, I had an idea for a useful utility and so today I thought I'd have a go at starting to code it. It felt like chiselling granite. Why should that be?

New post: Starting a new programming project, https://underlap.org/starting-a-new-programming-project

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Is office365 unavailable today?

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

People get into software development these days via a number of routes, but they usually start with some form of computer, even if it's only a mobile phone, and the internet. Born in 1960, my route into software development was rather different.

Read on: https://underlap.org/how-i-got-into-software-development

underlap, to haskell
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

1/3 In today's functional programming class we covered file IO in Haskell.

I repeatedly emphasised that for small files, it is much easier to read and write whole files using a single function rather than opening the file, using the file handle, and then closing the file.

underlap, to haskell
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

New blog post: Understanding Haskell's type system

https://underlap.org/understanding-haskells-type-system

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Is "release early, release often" as good a policy for personal blog posts as it is for software?

Certainly writing helps clarify your thinking, but what about the publication step? Is publishing a post and responding to feedback an essential step in finding out what you have to say on a subject?

Discuss.

underlap, (edited ) to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

What's your opinion of strong typing (in programming languages)?

Boosts appreciated.

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Having spent my career in system software, I have next to no interest in web technology. So I have tended to use third party sites, such as blogger and wordsmith.social, for blogging. I can write basic HTML, but I prefer markdown or LaTeX. I don't own a single domain and I'm happy with that.

Is there a better sweet spot, or site, for those of us who would like to avoid the kind of bit-rot described in @timbray's recent article? https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2023/06/21/CSS-plus

Suggestions welcome.

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Some half-formed thoughts on a topical subject: Single user instances
https://underlap.org/single-user-instances

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

TFW you install another Mastodon app because your regular one keeps hanging and then the regular one refuses to hang, so you can't legitimately raise an issue.

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

After my recent spate of unfollowing, my home timeline has nearly stalled. This is probably a good thing...

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Wondering why the is so popular. I enjoy my M1 MacBook, but I prefer a Fairphone to an iPhone, a Linux desktop for coding, and I don't see the point of wearing a watch (let alone one that troubles me with notifications). What am I missing?

underlap, (edited ) to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Roll up, roll up! Get your AI-shunning robots.txt here: https://github.com/ai-robots-txt/ai.robots.txt

underlap, to haskell
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

TFW you cobble together a Haskell program of less than 20 lines of code with one dependency (in addition to the standard runtime) and it takes several minutes to build (the first time around).

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

The view from our Airbnb in Gmund am Tegernsee (in Bavaria) is as lovely as ever. But today's the day they repair the railway line. 😂

Scenic video of the lake Tegernsee with the Alps in the background, but with heavy machinery noise.

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Pleasantly surprised my Fairphone 4 has a compass (not all phones do). Also, good that the latest update included Android 13.

underlap, (edited ) to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Just set up webfinger so "AT mastodon AT underlap.org" is an alias for my mastodon account on fosstodon.org. (I can't post the actual account because mastodon replaces it with the account it refers to!)

Thanks to https://guide.toot.as/guide/use-your-own-domain/ and https://stolley.dev/posted/getting-webfinger-to-play-nicely-on-nginx/

underlap, (edited ) to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

My NGINX robot access module is now complete and running on underlap.org. To see it in action try the following (but make sure to specify https:// before underlap.org):

curl -A "GPTBot" https://underlap.org

(should produce a 403 error)

https://github.com/glyn/nginx_robot_access

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

I've amalgamated two previous posts on blocking AI web crawlers: https://underlap.org/blocking-ai-web-crawlers

underlap, to random
@underlap@fosstodon.org avatar

Just watched an inspiring presentation on IndieWeb from 2019: Take Back Your Web by Tantek Çelik @tantek.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBLob0ObHMw

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • provamag3
  • rosin
  • thenastyranch
  • Durango
  • DreamBathrooms
  • ngwrru68w68
  • magazineikmin
  • cisconetworking
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • osvaldo12
  • GTA5RPClips
  • kavyap
  • megavids
  • InstantRegret
  • everett
  • cubers
  • vwfavf
  • normalnudes
  • tacticalgear
  • tester
  • ethstaker
  • khanakhh
  • modclub
  • Leos
  • anitta
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •